Marc-Antoine Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers Ensemble Correspondances & Sébastien Daucé

The ensemble Correspondances
presents mainly 17th century French sacred music; an era which saw produced a considerable number of masterpieces, some still unpublished, just waiting to be revived by young and passionate musicians.


Sébastien Daucé, the Artistic Director, and his musicians met while studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. A dedicated collaboration blossomed to unearth rare and neglected musical treasures, revealing, through their interpretation, a whole range of emotions within these works.


Since its formation in 2009, the ensemble has performed in France, Switzerland, Germany, Italia, Japan and South-America. Its first recording for Zig-Zag Territoires, O Maria !, featuring motets by Marc-Antoine Charpentier was released in 2010 to great critical acclaim (Choc de Classica Diapason découverte, Coup de cœur de l'Académie Charles Cros, ***** Fonoforum and Supersonic in Pizzicato). This was followed by L'Archange et le Lys, a collection of motets by Antoine Boësset, the first recorded anthology of the composer.

The ensemble has recently appeared at the Saintes festival, OudeMuziek festival in Utrecht, Easter Festival in Fontevraud, Printemps des Arts de Nantes, Nuremberg, Paris, Rome and Fribourg. They have recorded extensively for the radio: Bayerischer Rundfunk, Radio-France and Radio Suisse Romande. Highlights of the forthcoming season include festival d’Ambronay, Abbaye de Royaumont, festival de Lanvellec, and a Asian tour in April 2013.

Sébastien Daucé
After a specialized program at the National Conservatory of Music of Lyon, Sébastien Daucé played under the direction of Kenneth Weiss (Didon and Aeneas, Madrigal of Monteverdi), of Gabriel Garrido (Ercole Amante of Cavailli, in the Academy of Baroque Opera at Ambronay, and recently for the recording of another Cavalli opera, Gli Amori d’Apollo e Datne,) of Raphaël Pichon (Pygmalion), of Toni Ramon (Radio France), of Françoise Lasserre (Akademia) and Geoffroy Jourdain (The Crys of Paris).

He was the assistant of Kenneth Weiss’s for the 2006 and 2007 academies at the Festival d’Art Lyrique in Aix en Provence (France).

In 2006, he founded the Ensemble Correspondances. The first concerts of this ensemble, made up of young musicians from the National Conservatory of music of Lyon and of Paris, took place in France and in Switzerland. During this time, they were recorded and aired on the radio. The Ensemble Correspondances toured Japon in December 2009 ; and have played in some prestigious festivals (Pontoise, Saintes, Utrecht). Their two firsts Cds have been recorded on the ZigZag Territories label : they both received notable press such as Choc de Classica and a Diapason découverte. Sébastien Daucé has worked, as well in the past few years, on Marc-Antoine Charpentier; in which he has published in the Abbesses Editions, three operas, in collaboration with William Christie. From 2012, he is a teacher at the Pole Supérieur Paris-Boulogne.

Booklet for Marc-Antoine Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers